It is rather chilly outside, with overcast gray weather and lots of moisture in the air, with some drizzle. But... the greening is such a delight to look closer into. The flowers that start to emerge; the tulips and Easter flowers, and a lot of other wild ones... Makes me happy !

Carl Zeiss T* Sonnar 100mm

I thought i take the Contax Carl Zeiss T* Sonnar 100mm ƒ3.5 with me out in order to see how it feels like outdoors. (on a Fujifilm GFX 50s II camera). Additionally I i took the Marumi +3 closeup lens with me, for much closer encounters.

Generally, the lens performs admirably on the GFX.

Although - I do notice a sort of "dullness"; colors do not really sparkle. It is as if everything is a bit subdued. Especially today in that gray light we have today. You have to adjust that in post processing later. Nevertheless sharpness, and the lack of dark corners are fascinating with this lens - given its age of 40 years made for film material - yet performing so well on a digital mediumformat sensor, with a 3-layer 3.26 mm thick sensor glass on top... Almost all fullframe lenses fail to cover the larger 33x44mm GFX sensor. You get almost always dark corners; some and fewer show less.

The Carl Zeiss Sonnar 100 is a very rare exception, managing the GFX sensor so well.

Fringing ?

The lens shows very little fringing at wide open aperture ƒ3.5 - barely visible. Just a slight reddish (very thin) cast around very fine details of high contrast. Very good behavior in fact. It all disappears as soon you stop down a little.

What startles me

Since the lens is so diminutive - reminding more of a normal 50mm lens - i get startled every time my eyes look through the viewfinder - realizing that it is a telephoto 100 mm lens. (And i can't get really close). Therefore the MIN distance of 1 meter perhaps isn't so strange. (It does feel a bit far away), but that is rather normal for 100 mm telephoto lenses.